Lowlife

What tangled webs.

Wildly original, gory as hell and convoluted...Lowlife lives up to its name. It's not a story you can look away from at any given time. You gotta pay attention.

This is one hard movie to summarize. There are multiple stories, characters and intersections between the two. Basically, we're following pretty bad people all with unique motivations of their own. Some want to better their situations, but with any means possible. Others relish in their evildoings.

This is not a simple story to write a synopsis about. I recommend it because I love multi-storyline films with many characters crossing over the layers. Due to the enormously different and deep players and their needs, this never let me down in for a moment. I wanted more and more until the cinematic climax.

It's not for everyone, especially the squeamish and for those who want simple, Hollywood A-B-C storytelling - especially with clear villains and heroes. This is for those who want to go dark and experience creativity.

Funny, this is almost Breaking Bad Ver 2.

***

Final thoughts: Really just wanted to see what Nacho Libre looked like underneath his monstrous mask and thanks to IMDb, I finally did. Annnd I'm sad he had to hide such an incredible mug.

Life is tough for a down on his luck Mexican wrestling masked hero. Crime fighting doesn't really pay, so El Monstruo is relegated to thug duty. The conflicted good guy is a complex character, eager to carry on his family tradition (daddy was a famous luchador), but with a baby on the way, he stoops to henchman duties for local crime boss Teddy to pay the bills, usually with uncontrollably violent results.

That's plenty for plot, but this film throws in a heaping helping of parallel story lines for a rather convoluted viewing experience. Major events are replayed through different characters, and alternate angles, resulting in some much needed clarity, as everything comes together nicely, and not so nicely in the end.

The very seedy side of L.A. is the backdrop here, where illegals are funnelled towards horrific futures as prostitutes, or donors for a lucrative organ harvesting operation, or both. Grisly, old school gore movies are referenced as is some of Tarantino's spicier moments, but "Lowlife" works best on it's own originality: tackling very big global topics with local struggles.

"Lowlife" struggles from the usual low budget issues, mainly uneven performances - Teddy is too wooden - but the clever, spiderweb tale, wild sequences, and quirky characters make up for it: here's a newly released convict with a full face Swastika tattoo, who is refreshingly likeable. No, really.

Lowlife was a pleasant surprise, much better than I thought it would be. I loved the way the story was told, with different stories and characters intertwining to finally all come together in one entertaining story. The movie is easy to watch, even though there are some bloody gory scenes, which were great by the way, it still remains a movie that is a bit different from the rest. The cast was well chosen, they all did a good job with their respective characters. I see people are comparing it to some big cult movies, which I get, and that's just a compliment to Ryan Prows who did a great job to make this movie standing out from the rest. Lowlife has it's own style, a style they should make more movies like.

The actors here give some incredible performances - the director really got the utmost from them. The story is cleverly intertwined and I found myself really rooting for El Monstruo.

Be warned the opening scenes are harsh and set the tone but it does settle down to a consistent violence after the first acts.

How are you going to hate on the movie, it wasn't THAT bad. It's a B movie, but honestly, the acting is pretty good and I enjoyed the storyline. If you had some big named actors do that story and you had a more expensive production, this movie would have killed at the box office. You need to take it for what it is, a pretty good B movie, with some unknown but pretty good actors. It is a good watch if you are bored and want to watch a thriller/action/comedy, I would check this out. 6.1